So...Gennaro and his pals are having a party. Gennaro wanders off to take a snooze, and a mysterious woman comes over to him. They are instantly in love, somehow, but Gennaro confides that there's another woman he's in love with, his mother who he's never met, and if you suspect there might be an extremely far-fetched yet somehow also extremely obvious plot twist coming...well, you ain't wrong. Anyway, his friends see that the woman is Lucrezia Borgia and they tell about all their friends and relations she's had murdered. So she's sad, as you are in these circumstances. The duke thinks Gennaro is having an affair with his wife and plots to have him killed. Later, at the duke's palace, there's a sign that says "Borgia." To show his contempt for the family, Gennaro rips off the B so it says "orgia" (ie, orgy--sick burn). Lucrezia is extremely angry that someone would mess up her sign like this and demands that the perpetrator be found and executed in front of her, only to backtrack when she sees it's Gennaro. But the duke insists that he be killed and makes him take poison. Lucrezia however gives him an antidote and begs him to flee the city. He's going to go, but his friend Orsini insists that he come to their bangin' party first and says that the two of them can leave together the next day. They sing a song about what great friends they are. At the party, everyone is drinking, but something's wrong: it turns out the wine is poisoned. Lucrezia appears and explains that because they hurt her feelings back in the first act by telling about all the people she'd murdered, she has no choice but to murder all of them. But she's horrified to find Gennaro there; he was supposed to have left. But nope. There's some antidote left which she begs him to take, but he refuses, even after she reveals that he's her son (of course). So the friends all die and Lucrezia stabs herself. I...am fairly sure that's not how the historical figure met her end.
Phew. So this is based on a Victor Hugo play, but I can't say how closely, so I'm not sure quite whom I'm criticizing here when I note that this libretto is terminally broken. The main problem is Lucrezia herself, and the weird tonal mismatch between what's presented about her and the <i>way</i> it's presented. Like, in the first act, when everyone is accusing her of murdering their loved ones, and she's all "alas! No! O God!" The way this is done makes it look for all the world like she's being falsely accused, but...no. The text makes no effort to rebut anything anyone says about her. Fercrissake, the woman is a serial killer, and when the opera acts like that's...like, no big deal? Or a tragic but understandable flaw?...it's just really strange. No effort is ever made to present any kind of mitigating factor for her behavior. The entire weight of the drama is based on the putative pathos of her losing her son, but when you realize that if she weren't such a murderous psychopath she wouldn't be having these problems...it's hard to feel too badly for her. What the hell.
Hey, the music is perfectly sturdy Donizetti stuff, as why wouldn't it be, and there are some enjoyable vocal moments. Still, you can find plenty of Donizetti operas that don't require you to tolerate a bad libretto. Also, sorry to say so, but in this San Francisco Opera production, I think Renee Fleming was kind of the wrong choice for the lead. You realize that just because you have a particular vocal type doesn't mean you'll be able to effectively take on every role for that vocal type? Her problems are especially evident in Lucrezia's final aria, which calls for a lot of coloratura that she's just not good at. Natalie Dessay would've been good in the role. Or Diana Damrau (she may be my archnemesis, but credit where due; this also might be a role that would work well with her acting style). Not really Fleming, though. As Gennaro, Michael Fabiano is okay, I guess, but for some reason his hair has been bleached and spiked for the role, and combined with the leather get-ups he has to wear, he looks like Billy Idol, which is a little...weird (which might make you assume this is some weird Eurotrash production, but it's not; it's very traditional--except for occasional bits of weirdness like that). My favorite performances here were Elizabeth DeShong as Orsini and Vitalij Kowaljow as the Duke. They bring real conviction to their roles.
Worth noting that, as far as I know, there's no actual evidence beyond rumor run wild that the actual Lucrezia Borgia was a murderer, let alone the enthusiastic sort of murderer depicted here--although in fairness, just check out this picture, according to wikipedia the only one verified to have been painted of her from life:
She certainly LOOKS like she'd poison you as soon as look at you. I mean, given what a popular hobby murder was in Renaissance Italy, who knows? Still, her present reputation is probably largely powered by misogyny.
The plot seems very closely based on the play, which I have read — and if your French is up to it, you should too. As Hugo himself stated in his foreword to the play, it's sort of the whole point of the play to witness the disconnect between who she is, and the feelings she is now falling prey to; to witness a strand of humanity bubbling up to the surface of a bottomless tar pit of evil.
ReplyDeleteIt's very much not the idea that her murdering is a "tragic but understandable flaw" — if anything, what is tragic in this situation is that Lucrezia didn't stay a monster all the way through; the glimmer of humanity ends up making everything worse, for her and for her son.
Well, all I can say is, that extremely does not come across in this production. It may be the libretto's fault, or it's possible that a singer who approached the character in a different way than Fleming does could have suggested it--but this is what it is.
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